“You’re safe.”
No need for me to be afraid: I was wearing my pearl, and my best friend was beside me.
By presidential decree, the steamship St. Louis is to set sail immediately. It must leave the port with the immigrants it has on board. If it does not leave under its own steam, it will be towed several miles out to sea by a Cuban cruiser.
Diario de la Marina, Havana newspaper
2 June 1939
Friday, 2 June
Mama’s cries woke me. It had just dawned, and the portholes were open. The morning activity of the port began reaching us, and with it a hot breeze that I found suffocating. Mama was striding up and down in the tiny space where she had spent most of the night awake. She was in despair. The silk pillows and bedcover were in a heap in one corner of the bed.
She had come back to the cabin directly after the meal, refusing even to look at Havana, which was visible through the windows. It was the city that was never going to belong to her.
It was as though a storm had raged through the cabin. Open suitcases, the contents of the drawers spilled out, clothes strewn all over the floor, as if we had been burgled while we slept. My parents had been awake for hours. Weariness had made their movements slow. I closed my eyes, not wanting to be part of this battle with no enemies. I wanted to stay asleep, for them to think I couldn’t hear them, that I didn’t exist for them or for anyone, that I was invisible, and nobody could find me.
“They can’t have disappeared, Max. Somebody must have stolen them. That was the only hope I had left, Max, believe me. I can’t go back, Max. Neither Hannah nor I could bear it.” She kept repeating Papa’s name like a spell that could save her.
They couldn’t find the capsules, and, in the end, they would discover it was me. That Leo had thrown them into the sea, where they dissolved in the warm waters of the Gulf. Oh my God, what have I done? Forgive me, Mama.
She was crying, and I felt as if with each tear she was slowly bleeding to death. Papa, his back to the hurricane Mama had unleashed in our cabin, was studying the Havana shoreline, lost in thought. The city was a shadow, a mass of lifeless air. The port was a distant horizon nobody on board could reach. I still had my eyes closed; I was squeezing together my eyelids as hard as I could, wishing I could do the same with my ears, so that I wouldn’t have to listen to the sobs of this desperate woman.
The end had arrived, and it would be much worse, through my fault. Now the two of them would have to put a pillow over my head and suffocate me. I was ready: I wouldn’t resist. I was there, and there would be no capsules. It would be a slow death, but I deserved it, because I was the one to blame for us losing the magic powder that would have saved us from pain. There was no turning back. I would confess my crime. I was sure they would spit on me. Beat me. Throw me into the sea.
In the end, I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw Mama sitting on the bed. She had calmed down. Ready perhaps to become a murderer. I didn’t blame her.
She got dressed. Very slowly, she put on her silk stockings and her handmade white shoes. She brushed her short head of hair and applied a soft pink lipstick. Then she rubbed cream onto her arms, neck, and face. A shield against the sun.
There were three suitcases by the door. One was mine: I recognized it. I hoped they had packed my camera.
Papa seemed elsewhere, staring into space. There was no way out. Time to say good-bye.
“Hannah!” Mama’s voice was no longer gentle. “Nos vamos,” she said in Spanish.
I pretended to wake up. I was still wearing the dress I went to sleep in. I barely had time to put on my shoes. I didn’t want to cause them any more problems.
There was a knock at the door, and, as usual, it scared me. It was the Ogres: they had come for us. They were going to throw us into the bay, into the void.
A uniformed crewman told us the time had come to disembark. We would be taken in a tender to the port of this city that from the deck looked completely imaginary, unreal.
Mama emerged first. I followed her and could sense Papa walking behind me. Then he sped up, caught up with Mama, and dropped his valuable watch into her handbag.
Out on deck, all I heard were shouts and cries, families calling out their names in the hope that someone on the hazy, distant shore would hear them; someone who’d rescue them from their misery.
The captain was waiting for us. He looked tiny beside Papa. And Leo? Where was Leo? I needed to see him, to be allowed to say good-bye.
We struggled to make our way through the throng. The Cuban officials in their sweaty uniforms looked at us scornfully. We were used to that.
There was a commotion on the deck. Somebody was pushing his way through.
“Not everyone can be here. Wait your turn,” shouted an old man who could hardly remain standing when his silver-handled cane was knocked to the floor.
A hand picked up the cane and gave it back to the old fellow. Leo! I knew you wouldn’t abandon me, Leo! Let’s jump together, get away. The sea is ours.
Leo took my hand and thrust something into my palm. I didn’t know what it was, because all I wanted was to stare at him. I was terrified at the idea I might forget his face. I closed my hand tight, so as not to lose my gift. Then his father appeared, tugging at his arm, separating us before I could even thank him. Leo resisted and came close to me again:
“Don’t open the box until we meet again, Hannah! I’ll come looking for you, I swear! Today, tomorrow, or in another life, but I’ll find you! Can you hear me, Hannah?”
I felt my body begin to shake, and I thought I was going to collapse. Leo was still in front of me, his lips trembling. I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. Stay with me, Leo. Don’t let them tear us apart.
“If we never meet again, wait until you are eighty-seven to open it.”
We had promised to stay together until that age.
“No, Leo. You’ll come and find me. I don’t want to reach eighty-seven all alone. What would be the point?” I said. I could see he was fighting back tears.
He was going to kiss me, but we wouldn’t be able to embrace—the crowd was keeping us apart.
“Don’t cry, Leo,” I begged him, hardly able to speak.
But tears were welling in his eyes, and his long eyelashes could barely contain them. He wiped his face: he didn’t want me to see him cry. I couldn’t breathe; my heart was bursting.
Leo disappeared among the crowd with his father.
“Leo!” I shouted, unsure whether or not he could still hear me. In the commotion of frantic passengers, I lost sight of him.
“Promise me, Hannah!” I could hear his voice as he moved away, but couldn’t see him anymore.
I didn’t want anyone to see me cry. But the sun and the heat made it impossible for me to control my sobs. It was too late to respond to Leo: I didn’t know what to say.
“Of course I promise. I won’t leave this island until you arrive, I won’t open the box until we meet again,” I muttered disconsolately, knowing he couldn’t hear me anymore.
I raised my hand to see what he had given me. It was a tiny indigo-colored box. I clutched it so tightly it left an imprint on my palm.
I couldn’t open it, because Leo had sealed it. I knew it was the ring. He’d finally managed to get what he had promised me. The ring would keep us united to the end, until we were eighty-seven years old.
Mama was not crying anymore. Nor was there much sign anymore of her makeup, apart from a pale pink on her cracked lips. The Cuban officials checked our documents, our Cuban and US visas. Down below a tender named the Argus was waiting for us. It looked tiny and ramshackle, and was already filled with soldiers and relatives of some of the passengers. They were all crowded into the prow, and the boat was rocking dangerously in the waves, and the anxious passengers looked about to sink.
Mama fixed her eyes on Papa, and in a voice I’d never heard from the Goddess before, she swore:
“My son will not be born on this island!�
� She stressed the word island with all the disdain she could muster. “You can be sure they’ll pay for it, Max. From today I am not German, or Jewish; I am nothing.”
She vowed that those were the last words she would ever speak in German.
“Alma!” somebody called to her.
Above her, she saw Mrs. Moser with her three children, staring down as if begging her: “Please, take them with you! Save my children!” As if that were possible.
“Why them and not us?” moaned a woman carrying a baby, and I avoided looking her in the eye.
Mama didn’t answer. She didn’t say good-bye. She didn’t kiss Papa.
I threw myself into the arms of the strongest man in the world and hugged him with all my might. Bending down to me, he whispered something I didn’t understand into my ear. I could feel the heat of his cheeks. Hold me tight, Papa. Don’t let them take me away, don’t abandon me. Papa repeated what he had just said to me, but it was still an incomprehensible murmur.
Even though his chest was a huge armor plate, I could hear his heart beating and how his blood was racing at breakneck speed. He whispered in my ear again. I didn’t want the seconds to go by. I wanted everything to come to a halt.
A Cuban official pulled me roughly away from him. I cried out, but somebody was already hauling me down the swaying ladder. I held on to the salt-covered rail as tightly as I could. I closed my eyes to absorb Papa’s smell, but all I breathed in was a wave of sweat and hair oil from the policeman guiding me down. Mama was walking firmly along in front of me. What I was most scared of then was that someone might pry the indigo box out of my hand; I clutched it to me with all my might.
“Papa! Papa!” I started to shout, but he didn’t answer.
I cried uncontrollably, no longer even trying to hide it. My own sobs choked me. Papa refused to look at me, to see me go.
My tears robbed me of my voice. I was so ashamed I was leaving, I wanted to shout to my father, whom we were leaving on board. We were being torn apart! Being abandoned on a strange island where we wouldn’t be able to survive on our own! Papa! The passengers saw me crying and panicked further. Somebody called out to me. I heard my name.
“Hannah!” I couldn’t make out who it was.
Someone was saying good-bye to me. Perhaps it would be better never to know who it was. About thirty of us had been allowed to disembark. We were the chosen ones, the fortunate ones. I could see it only as a sentence, a terrible punishment.
The unfortunate ones were staying on board, the ones who had no future. Nobody knew what was going to happen to them. The captain would not be able to do anything. He would return to the high seas with 906 passengers, very slowly, in order not to have to land at Hamburg. My father would be among them, and so would Leo.
Mama stepped onto the Argus and slipped on the wet bottom of the boat, staining her white shoes. She clung to the rail and turned her back on the St. Louis without once looking at Papa, who was trying to make his hoarse voice heard above the others.
But I heard him. It was him, I knew it. I wanted them all to be quiet, for them to let me hear him. I concentrated; I shut out the noise and concentrated. I finally succeeded. He was asking me to do something. I don’t understand, Papa . . .
“Forget your name!” he cried out.
I no longer heard the crowd’s desperate shouts. Only my father existed now.
But he hadn’t called me “Hannah.”
“Forget your name!” he shouted again at the top of his voice.
The Argus moved away with a roar, covering the bay with a plume of black smoke as it left behind the biggest ship they had ever seen in the port of Havana. There would be no band waiting for us here with triumphant marches. We would hear only the shouts of the passengers who had to stay on board a ship that drifted aimlessly, without a destination.
The Ogres had snatched Papa from me. The Cuban Ogres. I couldn’t kiss him. I couldn’t say good-bye to him, or Leo, or the captain.
I wanted to throw myself into those dark waters that made the Argus pitch and roll. This was my last chance. I didn’t want to hear anything more, I just wanted the engine to stop.
All of a sudden, everyone on the Argus fell silent: we had reached the dock, and somebody was throwing over a rope.
Silence. Now there was complete silence. In the calm, I heard Papa’s voice floating out over the water one last time, echoing through a space where we had dreamed we could be happy.
“Hannah, forget your name!”
Hannah and Anna
Havana, 1939–2014
Anna
2014
Today I’m going to find out who I am. I’m here, Dad, in the land where you were born.
When we leave the plane the sunlight outside is blinding, but then we pass through immigration and customs almost in darkness.
They search Mom’s luggage, and the female official congratulates her on her dresses.
“I’ve never had anything like that. How many days are you going to be here? You’ve got enough to change lots of times,” she says, lengthening the vowels while the muscles of her face are in constant motion. Just looking at her exhausts me.
Today I’m going to meet Aunt Hannah. I tell myself to stay calm.
The man helping us close our suitcases asks Mom if she has a bottle of aspirin to spare.
“They’re hard to get here.”
We’re not sure whether it’s a test or if this badly shaved man in a military uniform wants the bottle because he has constant headaches. She gives it to him, and we’re pointed toward the exit.
“This is the first time I’ve been nervous going through customs,” Mom whispers. “I feel like I’ve done something wrong.”
We push our way through the crowd waiting for passengers outside the exit and board the taxi sent by Aunt Hannah.
The smell of gasoline makes me feel sick: first when we got off the plane, then in the car, and now as we enter the city. I try to put on my seat belt, but it doesn’t work. Mom glances at me out of the corner of her eye. She’s trying to be nice to the driver, who seems intimidated.
“Would you like to listen to music?” he asks.
“No!” we both reply at once, and then laugh.
We wind down the windows to lessen the smell of tobacco coming from the torn seat upholstery.
The potholes and the car’s awful suspension make me feel like we’ll be catapulted through the windshield at any moment. Mom never stops smiling at the driver, who now launches into a long speech about the difficulties in the country and the lack of resources to keep Havana’s streets in good repair.
“Some are better than this,” he says, as if apologizing.
The farther we get from the airport, the heavier the atmosphere becomes. I wonder if all Havana is like this.
A young boy without a shirt who is riding a rusty bike comes to a stop alongside us under a traffic light.
“Hello! Tourists? Where are you from?” he asks.
Our driver only has to give him a look, and he lowers his head and pedals off without waiting for a reply.
“A vagrant!” he says, heading for Vedado, the neighborhood Aunt Hannah has lived in since she came here from Berlin. The place where Dad was born.
“It’s one of the best neighborhoods in the city,” the driver tells us. “It’s right in the center. You can walk everywhere from there.”
Leaving behind the airport avenue, we cross a big square, with a gray obelisk beneath a sculpture of one of the island’s historic heroes. It’s surrounded by huge propaganda billboards and modern buildings that, our guide informs us, are government headquarters.
The square opens onto a wide avenue with a tree-lined walkway in the center and run-down mansions on either side. On several street corners, groups of people are lining up outside big buildings with faded paint that appear to be markets.
“Are we in Vedado already?” I ask, breaking the silence, and the driver nods with a smile.
Several young people
in uniform wave to us from a school. It seems like the word tourist is stamped on our foreheads. We’ll soon get used to it!
Somehow I can tell we are arriving. The driver soon slows down, pulls over, and parks behind a car from the last century. Mom takes my hand as she stares at a faded house with withered plants in the garden. The porch is empty; there are cracks in the roof. A battered iron gate separates the building from the sidewalk, which is raised here and there by the roots of a leafy tree that seems to have been planted there to protect it from the harsh tropical sun.
A boy sitting under the tree greets me, and I smile back. Mom walks toward the house with our suitcases. The boy comes over.
“So, are you relatives of the German woman?” he asks in Spanish. “Are you German? Are you coming to live here, or are you just on a visit?”
He asks so many questions at once that I can’t even think of a reply.
“I live on the corner,” he says. “If you like, I can show you Havana. I’m a good guide, and you won’t have to pay me.”
I burst out laughing, and so does he.
I try to get into the garden without having to touch the iron gate, but the boy gets there before me.
“My name is Diego. So, have you rented a room in the German’s house? Everybody here says she’s a Nazi, that she fled to Cuba at the end of the war.”
“She’s my father’s aunt,” I reply. “When he was my age, he became an orphan and she brought him up. Yes, she’s German, but she fled with her parents before the war broke out. And she’s not a Nazi, that’s for sure. What else do you want to know?” I ask him harshly.
“Okay, okay, take it easy! And I’ll still show you Havana if you want. All you have to do is come outside and shout my name, and I’ll be here in the blink of an eye. I don’t mind if you’re a Nazi, too.”
The German Girl Page 17